Network DRS: What?

We all know that VMware NSX brings L2–L4 network services up into the logical space, things like Layer 2 switching, distributed layer 3 routing, and distributed firewalling can all now be processed within the hypervisor.

Yeah so? That is so 2013.

What is 2014 going to bring?

What else did NSX enable that is not as broadly spoken about? Network visibility for the hypervisor.

Once you have lifted your network up into the logical space (software) you then have end to end visibility into the logical traffic flows. When DRS is given insight into these flows it can then be able to use that information (in addition to traditional compute level information) to more intelligently place VM’s in the environment. Enter Network DRS. A very simplistic scenario of this would be if you have 2 VM’s that are on separate hosts and those VM’s are generating a significant amount of traffic between each other. Since DRS would now have insight into the logical network traffic flows it would detect this and migrate one of the VM’s onto the same host as the other. Now, instead of having the network traffic go out onto the physical wire, it would be moving between the two VM’s at bus speed.

This is just one very brief example of the exciting things that NSX enables. VMware very briefly mentioned this as a technology preview at VMworld 2013. I, for one, am very excited to see what progress has been made to bring this to a generally available reality.